It is common to find electrified bus bar assemblies in retail settings because they are a convenient and reliable power source for lighting and electrical devices. Typical electrical bus bar assemblies have an insulator mounted within a housing and two electrified conductors mounted to the insulator. Track lighting and continuous plug-in busways are common examples of this type of track assembly. Take-away adaptors are typically used to tap power from the track or busway and provide a power source for the attached take-away devices. This type of bus bar can typically power any low voltage device from an LED light to a three phase machine. Thus, the appeal of a bus bar assembly is the ability to insert any number of take-away adaptors along the track to power any number of low voltage electrical devices.
Retailers typically use bus bar assemblies because it is cost prohibitive to install and maintain a typical three prong outlet for every electrical device in a retail setting. Conventional bus bar assemblies often found in retail settings are typically designed to mount to a displays shelving. A problem arises when a retailer occasionally or frequently decides to change the location of a display implementing a mounted bus bar assembly. The retailer must decide to un-mount the bus bar assembly from the display for relocation or to relocate the display with the bus bar assembly attached. In either scenario the retailer is disrupting a display, using man hours to un-mount and remount the bus bar assembly or to relocate the shelving with the bus bar assembly still mounted; all while running the risk of damaging the shelving and/or bus bar assembly during relocation.
Another problem faced by retailers using conventional bus bar assemblies is the electrical conductors or bus bars are often exposed to provide a contact point for the take-away adaptor. This increases the risk that an employee or patron will contact the exposed conductors and be exposed to hazardous electrical shock. Likewise, having the conductors exposed increases the risk of a low resistance connection being made between the conductors and shorting the circuit, which forces the retailers to incur the expense of repairing or replacing the bus bar assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,025, hereinafter incorporated by reference in its entirety, illustrates the problems described above, which the current invention overcomes. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,025 a display panel is described that is formed from a single piece, in which parallel recesses are opened that allow electrical lighting means, powered by low voltage from a step-down transformer, to be mounted. The mechanical attachment and electrical supply of each flange is effected between two consecutive recesses of the panel, longitudinal electrical conductors being disposed externally, in the surface of the panel, along the edges of the recess. In such a system, the electrical conductors are directly accessible to be touched and the electrical devices powered by the assembly are mounted to the display shelving.
Therefore, the prior art fails to provide a bus bar assembly for a retail environment that is safe, reliable, inexpensive, robust, and simple to manufacture. The present invention provides such an electrified bus bar assembly. These and other advantages of the invention, as well as additional inventive features, will be apparent from the description of the invention provided herein.